Siena

"CAM!"

Siena's shout echoed through the forest. She dropped her cupped hands. How long had it been—fifteen, twenty minutes? Too long. And neither Cam nor Isaac had returned.

"I need to go find her," Siena said, sick with panic.

"Just give her another five minutes, okay?" Emmett's voice was frustratingly calm as he scanned the upper part of the trail for Isaac. "I'm sure she'll be back."

Siena grimaced, abandoning her backpack near a rock by the trail. She paced the dirt, following her own path of footprints until it looked like hundreds of people had walked by.

"What's that?" Emmett asked.

Siena jerked her head up. He was watching her.

"Your arms. Where'd you get those scars?"

She crossed her arms to hide the marks, her reaction to protect not herself, but Wilder. Emmett had been at the hospital. Surely he remembered. "Dr. Feyrer."

Emmett raised his eyebrows. "He grabbed you that hard?"

"Yes, Emmett. That hard."

"Guess he really didn't want you coming on this trip. Maybe you should have listened."

She opened her mouth to defend herself, but was it really worth it? Emmett knew how sick Feyrer had been, and how his dying words contradicted everything he'd ever told Siena. And yet Emmett still used one of the worst moments of her life against her.

It didn't matter what the truth was. Emmett would manipulate it regardless. He hadn't changed, and he never would.

"You know..." She gave a hollow laugh. "He told me it was cursed. This trip. Or this place. I'm not sure what he meant, exactly. He said it one evening last year when we were working late and planning out the budget. I'd forgotten about that conversation until we found the body.

"I guess I should have asked for clarification, huh?" She looked up in mock thought. "But I suppose if I had taken him seriously that night and again while he was on his deathbed, then blamed my decision on some curse, you would have called me hysterical. Am I right, Emmett?"

His shoulders sagged. "Sen..."

"I'm gonna go find Cam, because she's the only one I have left who doesn't hurt me." She wiped her cheek and turned on her heel, following the path south, where Cam was.

"Sen, wait. I didn't mean... You don't have to be so sensitive."

Siena stopped, and then smiled a gracious, patient smile to herself. She'd fallen for this act of his too many times, but she was smarter now. Wiser.

When she glanced back at him, it was clear Emmett knew he'd fucked up.

"I'm not your wife," she said. "I'm not your girlfriend, or some kid in college you got stuck doing a group project with. I'm your boss."

"I didn't mean—"

"I'm going to go find our lead PI. Stay here."

This time, he didn't follow her, at least not right away. And Siena would have felt somewhat vindicated if she'd been able to hike farther than fifty feet ahead.

The thread of a trail ended in a lush tangle of branches and underbrush higher than her waist. She couldn't get through even if she had a machete. This was the wrong way, and the forest told her as much. Tufts of moss and lichen clung to the evergreens, the air earthier, the soil yielding to her weight. This neck of the woods teemed with moisture, but not from the weather. Siena sensed it beneath her. A spill bleeding upward.

Ever since they entered Deadswitch, nothing had made sense. She'd brushed it all off, hadn't she? Made excuses for every aberration, even going so far as to believe she'd had a psychotic episode. But she couldn't anymore.

No more excuses.

"Cam!" she screamed. "Cam! CAM!"

"What the hell is going on?" Emmett had followed her after all.

"It's a dead end. She isn't here." Siena sounded as helpless as she had years ago, on bad nights when the bugs wouldn't leave her alone.

Emmett must have recognized her tone, because he softened his voice. "She said she was trying to get to the granite. Maybe she went another way."

"Which way, Emmett? There is no other way." Tremors shook her voice. "I can't even tell what's on the other side of this. Are-wene-uh... Are we in a ravine?" She was tripping over her words now, her brain unable to keep up with her fear. "I... I don't... I don't know how we could have gotten so turned around."

For once, he didn't have an answer for her. No We probably just did X or I'm sure Cam is Y. Siena saw the shift behind his eyes, a vulnerability he never displayed when he was desperate to control a situation.

It terrified her.

Emmett took a deep breath. "Cam!" he yelled. "CAM!"

Siena listened, but only the wind from the valley responded. "What do we do?" God, when was the last time she'd asked him this question? Long before they'd broken up, when she felt like the only way they could stay together—the only way she could live with herself—was if she lessened her reliance on him.

Again, he didn't have a good answer. Not even an answer to fake confidence. That was how she knew they were really in trouble.

"Let's just think for a second." Emmett glanced back the way they'd come. "I could run back and try to find Isaac."

"No. I... I don't have a good feeling about us separating."

"Yeah... you're probably right."

"Let's both go. We're not even a half mile from the cabin. Cam will think to circle around eventually." Please let that be true.

As unsettled as Emmett appeared, he nodded, and she followed him back up the trail, rubbing the small risen scars left on her arms by Wilder Feyrer. Feyrer, who'd drunkenly spouted about anomalies years ago. Everything that had happened to them so far had been a damn anomaly—an entropic nightmare. But was it her luck, or this place?

They passed Isaac's bag, and Siena looked down, the path beneath her feet smooth and dusty, even though she'd spent the past quarter of an hour pacing right here.

She thought of the pristine trail back at the Glass Lake Trailhead—the lack of footprints.

A ringing in her right ear crescendoed into a shriek, and Siena stumbled and slowed. Beneath the ringing, a wet, visceral rumble echoed somewhere beneath her, deep within the mountain.

She'd heard this before, not once but twice. When she escaped the masked man in the cabin, in the woods on her way to the cellar. And at Wolf Ridge, right before they found the body in the tree. The noise that had woken her that night—she finally remembered.

Her eyes watered as a potent dread rose in her chest, like her brain had lost control of its ability to regulate her fear. She tried focusing on Emmett hiking in front of her, but when she caught sight of the state of the trail before them, her stomach lurched.

He wasn't paying attention.

She screamed his name until she tasted blood, but it was too late. By the time Emmett skidded to a halt, he was too close, pinwheeling his arms to push himself backward.

As he lost his balance, Siena launched forward and grabbed on to his pack, yanking as hard as she could. Emmett fell backward into the dirt.

Her breath left her in a hiss. Before them, the edge of the trail disappeared into a sinkhole the size of a car. She inched close enough to watch the dirt crumble from an exposed weave of thick roots and trickle into the pit.

Emmett lay dazed on top of his pack. He blinked and shook his head.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

He unclipped his chest and waist straps. "What... what happened?"

Siena prodded her pockets, finding her flashlight and clicking it on. She inched forward again, shining her light into the hole. But the beam couldn't pierce the bottomless dark.

Siena stared into the mouth of a void.